Back in February 2001, noted ornithischiphile Pete Buchholz accused ducks of being boring. How dare he. I could only respond...
"Errm... the evolution of carpal spurs and knobs, extreme pugnacity and territoriality, nest parasitism, creching behaviour, parental carrying of young both in the water and (!) in the air, monogamous pair-bonding, underwater copulation and the (?)reinvention of the penis, major sexual variation in tracheal structure, grass-eating and 20-minute gut carrying time, niche partitioning according to intestine size, carrion feeding on Subantarctic islands, the evolution of fern-eating, island giantism, island dwarfism, crepuscularity, serrated bill margins, filter feeding with buccal lamellae, deep-diving, species where males are flightless but females flighted, coevolution of browsing forms with spiky lobelioideaens, repeated increases and decreases in body size during phylogeny, the annual transportation of TONNES of sand... and, pant pant pant, quacking.
How *ON EARTH* can ducks be boring?????"
Ok, some of the claims made in the above (the one about penises, for example) are questionable and now seem incorrect, but I think you get the point. For Tet Zoo articles on ducks and other anseriforms, see...
- Attack of the flying steamer ducks
- Meteoroid vs goose… again
- Harbour seal kills and eats duck
- Duck humps dog, and other stories from the world of waterfowl sex
- The Madagascar pochard returns (again)
- Lo, for I have seen the Meller’s duck, and it was good
- Pink-headed duck and Red-crested pochard: who would win in a fight?
- Duck sex: to interfere, or to watch?
- Can you raise reindeer on goose shit? Amazing waterfowl facts part I
- Death by toxic goose. Amazing waterfowl facts part II
- Detachable wing-daggers. Amazing waterfowl facts part III
- Stinky seal-ducks. Amazing waterfowl facts part IV
- STOP ‘feeding’ the ducks